After weeks of will-they-or-won’t-they speculation, American and Chinese officials are slated to come together on Saturday to break the trade war détente.
But according to President Donald Trump, China won’t be getting any breaks on the 145-percent duties he placed on China-made goods in April in advance of those talks.
While U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet with their Chinese counterparts over the weekend in Switzerland, ostensibly to hammer out some semblance of a trade deal, Trump pumped the breaks when asked Wednesday if he’d consider lowering the tariffs on China in order to bring China to the table.
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“No,” he told reporters succinctly.
The president also seemed to take issue with reports from Chinese officials that the U.S. had initiated the tete-a-tete.
“The meeting between Chinese and US senior officials on economic matters was requested by the US side. Recently, the US has said repeatedly it wants to negotiate with China,” China Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian wrote on X.
He said that China would be participating in a discussion only if it was “based on equality, respect and mutual benefit.”
“To pressure or coerce China in whatever way simply does not work,” he wrote. “We will resolutely safeguard our legitimate interests and uphold international fairness and justice.”
“They said we initiated? Well, I think they ought to go back and study their files, OK?” Trump said on Wednesday from the White House.
Nonetheless, the meeting is still scheduled to move forward, perhaps precipitated by Bessent’s admission earlier this week that while trade talks with 17 other nations are progressing, U.S. and Chinese officials had not even broached the subject of a deal, causing stocks to drop.
The Treasury Secretary said Wednesday that some negotiations with other nations were “quite advanced,” though he declined to name the countries outright “because the negotiations may still be in process as we speak.”
“There are numerous countries…and we are moving forward at all deliberate speed with those,” he said. One day earlier, Bessent suggested that some deals could be finalized as early as this week.
